Template talk:Infobox election

RFC: Should elections include equal-ranked ballots in calculating vote shares?

Should elections include equal-ranked and truncated ballots when calculating vote shares? For example, should ballots marked A = B > C be included in calculating the vote share for A against B?

• Support - Yes
• Oppose - No

Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:04, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Support. The convention in the social choice literature on this topic is very clear: equal-ranked ballots need to be included, because they can affect the outcome of the election. This is particularly important for paired counting methods, because equal-ranking indicates indifference (which dilutes the margin of victory). Even for systems where equal-ranking two candidates does not affect the results, users should know what share of ballots were exhausted or ranked several candidates as tied. It is easy to calculate what the results of the election would have been if equal ranks were excluded, but not vice-versa. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:14, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose for now on the basis that you've not explained adequately what you are seeking to do. I've read your comments at WT:E&R several times and I am still none the wiser to what the issue is here. Number 57 19:47, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

  I'm trying to find consensus on a consistent standard for reporting ranked-choice voting results.

  As an example, let's take the article on the 2011 Irish presidential election. The infobox says the "final round result" was 56.8% of the vote for Michael Higgins, against 35.5% of the vote for Sean Gallagher. These don't add up to 100%, because some voters have ballots that look like this:

  1. Mitchell
  2. McGuiness
  3. All other candidates (equal)

  "Any other candidate" votes make up the last 8%. The question is whether an infobox reporting "final round results" should include "all other candidates," or whether these votes should be excluded.

  Currently, there is no standard, and infoboxes are inconsistent across articles. For example, 2009 Burlington mayoral election uses the opposite convention. "All other candidates" are 6.7% of votes, but these are discarded to report the margin as 51.5% to 48.5%, instead of as 48% to 45.2%.

  This allows unscrupulous editors to manipulate the apparent margin of victory: a Purple party supporter might report an election they lost as having a margin of 30% to 20%, with 50% of voters being apathetic between the two (an unconvincing victory). Elsewhere, they could report the same election results, but with Purple as the winner, by saying Purple had 60% of the final-round vote. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 21:24, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

So, do you just mean we should stick to reporting first preference votes for STV/AV/SV elections? Bondegezou (talk) 06:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm saying that in every round or matchup, the vote share should be equal to the number of votes for a candidate, divided by the total number of ballots (including those that, in the final round, show no further preferences). This is because those ballots can still affect the outcome under many voting systems. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 07:12, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I suggest we should follow standard practice by reliable sources, and that these may vary from context to context. Closed Limelike Curves, can you show some examples in RS of what you want done? Bondegezou (talk) 12:12, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

RS? Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 16:46, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

There's not really a standard practice from reliable sources for this, because both numbers are correct; they just measure different things. The only time this causes a problem is when vote totals are inconsistent across infoboxes on Wikipedia, because excluding truncated ballots from some totals but not others leaves the door open for biases and confusion. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I think consistency in a series of articles about elections in the same place makes sense. I don’t think there’s a particular need for how we report Maltese elections to match how we report Australian elections if RS about the former do one thing and RS about the latter do another. I think instead of this very generic RfC, that most editors appear to be struggling to follow given the lack of activity in it, it would be more useful to examine specific cases. Bondegezou (talk) 12:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

It's more that the reliable sources differ between media sources and academic sources. Journalists reporting election results tend to drop these kinds of ballots. Academic sources (scientific journals) consistently include them.

By the way, I should note that this is actually an extremely that's created no fewer than 6 edit wars and I'm utterly sick and tired of it. I'm describing this policy as vaguely and generically as possible, without mentioning any specifics or specific articles, because if I don't it'll probably start a flame war and the entire debate will fall back on partisan lines. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:34, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Request for IRV infobox

Right now IRV infoboxes like 2009 Burlington, Vermont mayoral election are kind of hacked-together. It’d be nice to have a template to reproduce that with fewer manual inputs! (cc @Number 57) –Sincerely, A Lime 17:55, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to change numbers up to ten

Hello. For the 2024 Cork City Council election page, ten parties/independent parties can be shown as gaining/losing seats from the previous 2019 Cork City Council election - for either losing all their seats, or gaining seats as a new party. As the box only can show nine parties, this unfortunately means that not every party/non-party elected/unelected can be shown in the box. It would be a great benefit if all ten figures could be in the box, which is why I would propose to increase it to ten. Lucky102 (talk) 02:28, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

This template gets ridiculously large with that many parties. What about just switching to Template:Infobox legislative election? Bondegezou (talk) 06:54, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Ten wouldn't really make sense as the infobox works in rows of three. But it's already too big once it goes beyond one row, so I echo the comments above about using {{Infobox legislative election}} instead. Number 57 21:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I always feel like the legislative election infobox is too sparse for 6-9 candidates, but the current infobox can't handle more than 3 candidates well. Have we ever tried borrowing the infobox from non-English Wikipedias? Example in Spanish. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:54, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

New format?

Hi there. Just want to ask if there's a new format of the infobox in the making. Went to a few election pages and there was a new format, but with the images displaced and with things not within the lines of the box, making it look disorganized and disproportionate.Tuesp1985 (talk) 21:44, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Tuesp1985, where did you see this happening? Primefac (talk) 21:57, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm seeing this now on all the election pages with infoboxes. But, for example, the 2024 European Parliament election in Ireland.Tuesp1985 (talk) 22:01, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Are you seeing the same thing at Template:Infobox election § Legislative or parliamentary? Everything looks normal/okay to me. Primefac (talk) 22:04, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the format looks different, with the images floating, in some cases with their sizes tampered, and a lot of spacing between the lines, which makes the infobox disproportionate. When I posted the topic, the template still had the former format, but it has now changed, with the US election example being weird.Tuesp1985 (talk) 22:09, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, neither the template nor its .css have been changed recently, so I suspect it's probably a WP:THURSDAY issue or a browser issue. Primefac (talk) 22:14, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

A browser issue I don't think it is, as on Mozilla and Chrome I'm seeing the same issue. Maybe it's WP:THURSDAY issue, like you said. But, are you seeing now the changes?Tuesp1985 (talk) 22:17, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

All looks fine and normal to me; I'm using the legacy Vector, which got some major overhauls a week or so ago (they're rolling out the updates to the various skins). Primefac (talk) 22:22, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I also noticed the same thing on the U.S. election pages on my phone (desktop site). Prcc27 (talk) 23:24, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

This is apparently an unintended effect of a code change deployed today. It is being discussed at VPT in a multi-header thread. Bug reports have been filed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:24, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Right, I've read the VPT threads and yeah reports have been filed. Let's see if the matter is resolved. Thanks for the info Jonesey95.Tuesp1985 (talk) 01:39, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Some issues seem to have been resolved, however image sizes, in some infoboxes, and a few glitches persist.Tuesp1985 (talk) 22:47, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Please provide links to a couple of affected articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:46, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Some examples are 2013 Christchurch mayoral election and 2022 Tauranga by-election where the candidate images size shrunk to a very small size compared to pre-update. Kiwichris (talk) 06:06, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Both of those look fine to me. I gave them a null edit in case a caching problem was manifesting on your end. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:22, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Merging Parametres - "previous_election" and "previous_year", and "next_election" and "next_year"

@Number 57, Impru20, Vacant0, Siglæ, Rowei99, Μαρκος Δ, Checco, Scia Della Cometa, Yakme, Vacant0, Braganza, Kawnhr, Chuborno, Davide King, Nick.mon, Erinthecute, HapHaxion, Helper201, Vif12vf, PLATEL, Morgan695, Tyrosian, and Elg3a-1: I believe it would be best to merge them, akin to how TILE has them merged. What do others think? ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 16:57, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

If this is possible it would be great! Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:21, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

@Closed Limelike Curves: It's pretty much a no-brainer, and I'm surprised it wasn't implemented as soon as TILE became a thing. ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 11:10, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Lots of space

Kia ora, something changed and now a bunch of these have lots of extra white space for some reason? Like 1978 Gilbertese Chief Minister election TheLoyalOrder (talk) 00:21, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I fixed a typo in some other routine edits today introduced in June. Izno (talk) 00:46, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

the problem appears to have been fixed TheLoyalOrder (talk) 01:04, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Leaders seat/Leader since only to be mentioned if included in text?

Should this still be a requirement of the infobox's usage? Especially considering the longstanding usage of it in United Kingdom and Australian general/federal elections, none (or very few) of which include the seat in the plain text. It feels like an unnecessary caveat to add, and a newer addition to the documentation relatively speaking as well. I personally propose officially allowing the infobox to include the "leaders_seat" and "leader_since" parameters without the info being included in the plain text of the body, which seems to be unofficially allowed on dozens of articles already.

Essentially, codify that leader's seat and leader since should be permitted to be included without explicitly being listed in the article's text, as is already de facto permitted in dozens of articles about UK and Australian elections, Support? Oppose? why/why not? – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 12:09, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

It's an MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE violation to include it. The inclusion predates the RfC that ended with an outcome for them not to be included, and just needs putting into practice. Number 57 20:46, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

RfC projected electoral votes USA

There is an RfC here regarding when to add projected electoral votes to the infobox for U.S. presidential elections. Prcc27 (talk) 07:55, 10 August 2024 (UTC)